RE: Understanding morality (was: SIAI's flawed friendliness analysis)

From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Sat May 10 2003 - 12:32:06 MDT


> I strongly believe that we shouldn't wait for an AI to understand
> morality.
> I believe that we, as a society, desperately need to develop
> formal/codified
> structures/procedures for representing, making, and defending moral (and
> other) decisions that human beings can use as well as,
> eventually, Friendly
> AIs. Obviously, these need to be Bayesian and need to take into
> account the
> very different "facts" that everyone brings to the table. My
> assumption is
> that such will, at the very least, make impossible many of the
> inconsistent
> arguments that are rife today and make explicit the hidden agendas that
> everyone brings to the table

It's an interesting project, and a very large one...

Of course, not all humans are going to accept that this is a morally correct
process to be using to deal with moral issues! Many religious folks will
consider this process to be part of secular society and hence not morally
valid....

What I envision coming out of the process you describe is a kind of
practical formal deductive system dealing with morality. A priori value
judgments may be provided as axioms, and the practical moral judgments based
on them emerge as derivations from the axioms.

I'd be curious to know your more detailed thoughts, sure...

ben g



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